You can not throw CreateException in ebjCreate() methods of MDB , session bean and entity bean.the mothods its name begin with "ejb" invoked by container,container does expect get application exception such as CreateException .But you can throw CreateException in Create() methods of session bean and entity bean home interface, but not MDB.beasause MDB have not client, if you throw one, who will receive it.(MDB have not Home interface and component interface.) [ March 04, 2004: Message edited by: si yi ]